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SALES OF INDIANS' PINE TIMBER 

Philadelphia, March 13th 
Hon. Columbus Delano, 

Secretary of the Interior. 

Dear Sir : — Your continued unwillingness to ann 
the injurious contracts for the sale of immense bodies 
of pine and cedar timber, on Indian reservations in 
Minnesota and Wisconsin, made by the Interior De- 
partment, without warrant of law, and against the 
wishes and best interests of the Indians who are its 
lawful owners, compels me, as the friend of these 
Indians, to review the recent Report of a so-called 
Investigating Commission, which, without such a review, 
might seem to justify the perpetuation of this wrong. 

Tst. It is alleged in the pamphlet that the Commis- 
sion was organized at my instance, to investigate 
charges made by me against Agent E. P. Smith. This 
statement you know to be wholly erroneous, for I was 
not consulted as to the creation of the Commission, 
or the selection of its members. My letter, dated two 
weeks after the formation of the Commission, contained 
the only charges made by me ; it was written at your 
request, and it related solely to transactions connected 
with sales of timber on Indian reservations. If the 
Commission had acted with customary propriety, they 
would have returned that letter to me, because my 
counsel had refused to conduct the case before a Com- 
mission without power to enforce the attendance of wit- 
nesses. The Commissioners are alone responsible 
for the publicity given to that letter, and for its misuse 
in other respects. 




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2d. The Commission expresses surprise that "having 
the Marshal to execute process, and furnished wi h the 
means for defraying the expenses of witnesses, and 
proper officers to take the testimony," my attorneys 
would not appear before them. All the readers of that 
paragraph with whom 1 have conversed, supposed that 
the Commission was willing to compel the attendance 
of witnesses by the help of the Marshal, whilst at first 
they had not that power, and after it was placed within 
their reach, they were disinclined to use it. My At- 
torneys — having facts within their reach, stated that 
" A number of persons have become interested in the 
Wilder, Merriam and Rust Contracts, and the united in- 
fluence of such interested parties is brought to bear to 
suppress the facts in connection with said contracts and 
volunteer witnesses in support of the charges cannot be 
hoped for," and that "under these circumstances you 
can gain no information except such as is volunteered," 
— "we must, therefore, respectfully decline to appear 
before you." The action of my counsel has since been 
justified by the investigation of the Wilder Contract be- 
fore a Committee of the Legislature of Minnesota. — 
Judge Gilfillan testified, that he had drawn for Mr. 
Wilder, a transfer of one-fifth of the pine and cedar 
timber purchased from Agent Smith, to a man by the 
name of Dwyer, who it seems to be assumed would 
not be likely to have taken on his own account so 
large an interest in this immense contract. How far 
the fear of exposures, in connection with this or other 
transfers, may have influenced your Commissioners, 
they have not revealed ; but enough has been brought 
to light to justify my Attorneys in the course they took. 
At the interview of two of the Commissioners with 
me in this city I expressed, orally and by letter, my 
readiness to appear before them and to furnish my 
papers, if they could and would compel the attendance 
of witnesses. 

3d. The - Commissioners say that the sale of pine 
timber by Agent Smith to F. P. Clark, was made hon- 



estly, equitably, and as a necessary measure of relief 
to starving Indians. There is certainly room for grave 
questions as to the honesty of a sale made under the 
following circumstances: Agent Smith did not allow 
time for the purchasers to examine any portion of that 
for which they were asked to bid. Your Commissioners 
assert " that publication was made in the newspapers 
for nearly four weeks." I am informed that it was 
advertised only seven times in one paper in Minne- 
apolis, and not in St. Paul. The first advertisement 
appeared on Sunday, July 14th, and the subsequent, 
advertisements were from the 23d to the 28th of July ; 
the bids to be opened at the White Earth Reservation, 
a very distant point, on the first of August. The 
advertisement of the 14th of July was the only one 
that was generally available, as a bid mailed on the 23d 
would not have reached the White Earth Reservation 
until after the first of August. Eugene M. Wilson, 
formerly member of Congress, and others, testified 
before the Committee of the Minnesota Legislature, 
that from the form of advertisement and the short time 
allowed, and other circumstances, they did not think it 
a bona fide proposal. F. P. Clark went in person, and 
he swears that he was obliged to pay Lorrin Fletcher, 
the intimate friend of Agent Smith, $1200 to tell him 
the lowest price at which he could purchase the timber, 
and to secure the contract for him. Agent Smith 
admits that Clark paid %\ 200 to Fletcher, averring, how- 
ever that Fletcher said he received this consideration for 
declining to bid for the timber. The contract was ex- 
ecuted by Agent Smith, the price being $[.35 per M. 
for the pine timber belonging to the very needy In- 
dians situated on Oak Point, their consent having been 
previously obtained. If the timber had been properly 
advertised, time allowed for its examination, and then 
sold in lots to suit purchasers, it would no doubt have 
brought twice or three times the price for which it was 
sold. Subsequent events show that it was not disposed 
of by Agent Smith as a measure of relief to starving 



4 



Indians, and the advertisement must have been very 
insufficient when even Mr. Wilder did not hear of it 
until fifteen days after the time had expired. Do you 
believe that any honest real estate agent would thus 
treat the property of his ignorant wards ? and would 
you continue your own business with such an agent ? 

4th. The Report attempts to justify the cancellation 
of this sale to Clark, and the subsequent sale to A. H. 
Wilder. Custom and law alike reject bids received 
after the time fixed in an advertisement, as was the 
case with Welder's bid. Indeed, it was not made or 
even thought of until after Agent Smith had com- 
pleted the contract with Clark. If this fact had been 
stated to so honorable a gentleman as the then Com- 
missioner of Indian Affairs, he would not have re- 
fused to approve that contract; and if he had been 
told that F. P. Clark was willing to give $1.35 for 
all the pine timber, as is asserted by Clark, and virtu- 
ally admitted by Agent Smith, or if he had been in- 
formed of its true value, he would not have approved a 
contract to Wilder at $1.15. R. J. Baldwin, a banker, 
of Minneapolis, testified before the Legislative Com- 
mittee that he heard Clark offer $1.35 for all the pine 
timber on the Leech Lake Reservation, and that he 
heard Smith promise to let him have it if he could. 

Agent Smith asserts that he did not see W 7 ilder un- 
til five hours after he had telegraphed to Clark that the 
Indians had refused to allow the contract he had made. 
Surely there was ample time between August 1 5th, when 
Wilder heard of the advertisement, and October 14th, 
when Smith telegraphed Clark that his contract was 
valueless, for Wilder to have communicated in some 
other way his desire to purchase this valuable body of 
timber. On the 12th of August, the same day that 
Smith executed the Clark contract for which Fletcher 
was paid $1200, he executed a contract with Merriam, 
Wilder's partner, for an immense body of valuable pine 
timber on Red Lake. As L. Fletcher was a witness 
to and partner in this contract, and as Merriam was in 



5 



constant intercourse with his partner, it is easy to see 
how Wilder heard of the Clark contract and the ob- 
scure advertisement, and how he could communicate 
with Agent Smith about the best mode of consummating 
a stupendous wrong. To cancel one contract at $1.35 
because the Indians objected to the sale at that rate, 
and then to sell at $1.15, on much more unfavorable 
terms for the Indians as to delivery, &c., is a proceed- 
ing it would not be easy to justify. By the Clark con- 
tract, wrong as it was, "the poor, perishing, Pillager 
Indians" would have had a larger and earlier pecuniary 
relief than by the Wilder contract. Clark was com- 
pelled to pay for all the timber in four years whilst Mr. 
Wilder is not obligated to cut or pay for any timber be- 
longing to these Indians for twenty years, as his purchase 
includes the timber of ten tribes or bands, and he is to 
put a distinguishable mark on each log, that the band 
to which it belongs may be credited with the money 
received for it. It appears that Mr. Wilder made a 
nominal bid of $1.60 for the timber that Clark had al- 
ready contracted for, but by reading the letter of Fran- 
cis A. Walker, the then Commissioner of Indian Af- 
fairs, which was received as evidence, you can perceive 
the deep laid scheme. Mr. Walker says that Mr. 
Wilder objected "to make good his bid unless the De- 
partment would give some assurance that other parties 
would not be let in to cut timber on the stream behind 
him." That letter shows how Mr. Walker was deceived 
into the approval of the contract, which it is alleged 
and believed had been previously prepared in Minne- 
sota with the utmost care. It covers an immense tract of 
country filled with navigable streams and belonging to 
some ten bands of Chippewa Indians. Wilder is only 
obligated to take trees that are thoroughly sound and 
merchantable, 14 inches through, 25 feet above the 
butt — say about one-half of the timber on the reser- 
vation. He has the liberty to take at any time 
during 20 years, at the same price, any or all the 
other pine and cedar timber on the reservation paying 



6 



for it as he takes it away. If he does not remove it in 
20 years, he is then to pay for such trees as he is wil- 
ling to take, and there is no limit in the contract as to 
the time for cutting or removing such timber. During 
the first ten years he is to pay for timber to the extent 
of $28,000 a-year ; but during the second period of ten 
years he is to pay each year for one-tenth of the ex- 
cess of the very large sound trees that he is bound to 
receive. Any depredation by Indians is to be estima- 
ted and deducted from the payment for timber, but 
there is no arrangement in the contract by w 7 hich the 
Indians are to be compensated for wrongs done by the 
lawless wood-choppers, and other agents of the con- 
tractor. Your Commission has reported this as a fair 
transaction, although one of them with Commissioner 
Smith had estimated less valuable timber on the ad- 
joining townships to be worth $2.50 to $3 per M., if sold 
in the ordinary way, by which all merchantable timber 
is to be paid for and removed within two or three 
years. 1 his valuation, you will find in their Report, 
dated November 25, 1872, seventeen days after the 
sale to Wilder. I have testimony from those who have 
thorough practical knowledge, that the timber sold to 
Wilder is much more valuable, because better located, 
than that appraised by Messrs. Jones & Smith. If 
timber is worth $2.50 to $3, when sold in the ordinary 
way, it should bring at least $4 under such a contract 
as that allowed to Mr. Wilder. Among other evidence 
to this effect is the following testimony before the 
Minnesota Senatorial Committee: 

" Augustus D. Prescott, a lumberman, familiar with 
the Leach Lake reservation — having been over it many 
times and logged there one season — estimates there 
is about a thousand million feet of standing merchant- 
able pine on the reservation. Stumpage in the vicinity 
of Leach Lake runs as high as $3 a thousand, and 
under the Wilder contract, allowing time for cutting 
and increasing of value, the Leach Lake pine, he thinks, 
is worth at least $4 a thousand. The country, he says, 



7 



is not subject to fires, and, except that a tow steamer 
would be needed on the lakes, driving is not difficult. 
The limitation to sound timber, 14 inches at 25 feet 
from the ground, he regards as extremely liberal to the 
buyer." 

"Joel B. Bassett has been a manufacturer of lumber 
for most of the 20 years that he has resided in Minne- 
sota, but was Indian Agent, having his office at the 
Leach Lake Agency, in 1867, '68 and '69. He has no 
doubt there is a thousand million feet of merchantable 
pine on the reservation. He thinks the pine sold to 
Wilder is worth $3 a thousand feet, and would be a 
good bargain at that price ; also that the cedar, of which 
there is an immense amount, will be ultimately of great 
value. The lakes and streams will prevent fires from 
spreading. Most of the logs from the reservation can 
certainly be run out the first season. In his judgment 
there is about one-sixth of the pine on the reservation 
on that part of it which belongs to the Pillagers ; not 
over two hundred million feet, but enough and distinct 
from the rest, so that it could have been sold by itself. 
The highest price could be obtained for pine by selling 
it in lots to suit purchasers, but there would be no 
difficulty in finding men who would be glad to secure 
the whole of it." 

The exposure of the sub-contract to Dwyer, before 
referred to, as made very privately by Mr. Wilder, has, 
no doubt, led to the compromise just entered into by 
him with the Minnesota Legislature, whereby Wilder 
entered into an obligation to release all school and 
swamp lands included in his contract, that the State 
may establish its claim upon, and from this release the 
gain by the Mate of Minnesota is estimated by a com- 
mittee of the Legislature at one and a-quarter millions 
of dollars. The testimony of Surveyor-General Camp, 
Surveyor-General of logs and lumber, as reported by 
that committee, shows that the entire pine supplies of 
the Upper Mississippi will, at the present ratio of 
increasing use, be exhausted in fifteen years. The 



8 



committee begs the Legislature to stop the sales of 
pine stumpage on school and university lands, aver- 
ring that a sale at $2.50 per thousand is a robbery 
of the school and university funds, because in ten 
years, pine will be worth four times that sum. The 
Committee also protested against the sales to Wilder 
and George M. Merriam, his partner, of the great 
bodies of pine timber on the Leech Lake and Red Lake 
reservations, as creating great and dangerous monopo- 
lies. Estimating the pine and cedar sold under the Wil- 
der contract as worth $2.50 a thousand for the first ten 
years, $5 for the second ten, and $10 for that cut after 
twenty years, the profit would, as estimated by experts, 
vary from two to five millions of dollars. Four ex- 
perts testified to the Committee of the Minnesota 
Legislature, that in their opinion, the whole tract will 
vield a thousand millions of pine lumber. This im- 
mense sale was made without any thorough investiga- 
tion as to the extent, character and situation of 
the timber, without advertising, without any compe- 
tition, without notice to the owners of the timber, and 
against their wishes. The plea that the sales were 
made solely out of regard to the Indians is utterly 
fallacious, as the Commissioners could easily have 
learned had they been pleased to make the inquiry. 
General Terry and the other officers stationed in Min- 
nesota, would, if called upon, have testified that it will 
be difficult to control those uncivilized Indians because 
thus wronged of their property. Bishop Whipple, the 
Rev. Mr. Gilfillan, his white missionary to the Chippe- 
was, and the Rev. Mr. Johnson, his Indian missionary, 
all on terms of friendship with Messrs. Wilder and 
Smith, would have testified to the fearfully demoraliz- 
ing influences of wood-choppers' camps upon both 
men and women belonging to uncivilized Indian tribes. 
The Commission refers to a sale of Timber on the 
Rabbit Lake Reservation with the Indians' approval, 
all the consideration being secured to them, and a 
sale of Timber by Indians that was held to be legal, 



9 



although made without the assent of the United States. 
It is not easy to understand the process of reasoning 
by which these sales justify contracts made without the 
approval of Indians. 

Your commission was unable in its report to refer to 
any Act of Congress authorizing such sales as that to 
Wilder, and the opinions of Chief Justice Marshall and 
other able judges must be overthrown before a sale 
against the wishes of the Indians can be made valid. Such 
acts as these, sanctioned by no law, are, to quote the 
language of Senator Carpenter, used in another case 
of attempted wrong to the Indians, " repudiation doubly 
infamous from the fact that the parties whose claims 
were thus annulled are too weak to enforce their just 
rights, and were enjoying the voluntarily assumed 
guardianship and protection of this Government." 

On the second day of December last you gave me 
notice that you had suspended all operations under the 
Pine contracts in Minnesota and Wisconsin, but that 
order does not seem to have been regarded where 
they were engaged in cutting timber, and Wilder would 
not' have executed the agreement with the Legislature 
of Minnesota a week since, unless he had considered 
himself the authorized representative of the parties who 
had possessed themselves of the Indians' timber. 

5. The contract for the sale of pine timber on the 
Lac de Flambeau Indian reservation, executed at Chi- 
cago in March, 1873, not having been approved owing 
to an objection made by Congressmen from Wiscon- 
sin, to unadvertised contracts, no practical benefit can 
result from its further consideration. That each per- 
son named by me took part in preparing or in sanc- 
tioning the contract, is admitted in their testimony. On 
their own affidavits I am willing to free them from the 
charge of intentional wrong made against them by those 
who revealed the transaction. Every Court in the 
United States would pronounce it " wrongful" for 
trustees or guardians to sell immense bodies of timber 
without advertising, or other public notice, without 



IO 

competition or such a subdivision as would make any 
great competition possible, and without a personal 
examination, or inspection by an expert in the sole in- 
terest of the trust. Indians are surely entitled to equal 
consideration by the Government and its officers. 

6th. E. P. Smith's testimony as to the sale of pine 
timber to George N. Merriam at a lower rate than that 
offered by N. P. Clark is far from being satisfactory. 
As you well know, it is quite usual to allow lower 
bidders to buy off those who offer a higher price, thus 
wronging the Indian, because he has no one to look 
after his interests. In this sale of timber on the Red 
Lake Reservation, L. Fletcher, who received $1,200 
for facilitating another purchase, was a witness, and he 
and Gen. John B. Sanborn have shares in the purchase, 
as Fletcher testified before the Legis^tive Committee. 
The sale to George N. Merriam of the Red Lake timber 
was made on August 12th, 1872; but it was not approv- 
ed until November 8th, when Agent E. P. Smith was 
in Washington, facilitating the operations of Wilder 
Merriam's partner. If you will refer to a letter to me, 
dated December nth, 1873, from the acting Commis- 
sioner of Indian affairs, you will find this significant 
paragraph: — "In reply to yours of 5th inst. I would 
state that Mr. Clark's letter withdrawing his bid, was 
dated simply October, 1872, and that no particular date 
can be gleaned from it. The official stamp thereon, 
shows it to have been received at this office, Novem- 
ber 8th, 1872." An investigation of the means taken 
to get the consent of some of the Red Lake Indians 
to this contract, would, I think satisfy any fair-minded 
person, that the contract was wrongfully made. When 
an Indian Agent makes a league with a speculator in 
timber, the poor Indian has no one to represent his 
interests. You have, no doubt, heard, that there is 
much dissatisfaction among these Indians, as they be- 
lieve that they have been wronged by one who should 
have been their protector, the Red Lake Reser- 
vation comprises nearly three millions of acres of land, 



1 1 

hence the iniquity of a sale of timber on this immense 
tract without advertising or competition, or a sub-divis- 
ion, that would bring it within the reach of the great 
body of lumber dealers. The remonstrance by the 
Legislature of Minnesota against this sale, should cause 
the'attention of Congress to be given to this grievous 
wrong to Indians, who have been the friends and allies 
of our citizens. 

7th. Your Commissioners seem to justify the con- 
tract made between Agent S. N. Clark, and William 
A. Rust, for a large body of pine timber, on the Lac 
Court d' Oreilles Reservation. The history of this con- 
tract is most humiliating. A member of a firm of claim 
agents, who seems to have remarkable capacity for in- 
fluencing his fellow-man, sought out Agent S. N. Clark, 
at his home on Lake Superior, and, as he alleges, pro- 
duced evidence of being in high favor in the Interior De- 
partment, and that the chief officers in that department 
would be much gratified if a contract could be made 
for pine timber on an Indian Reservation. Clark 
avers that he was averse to selling timber that he had 
never seen, and of the value of w hich he had no idea. 
This Washington expert as Clark says, succeeded in 
tempting him at a moment of great bodily weakness, and 
obtained from him on the second day of October, 1872, a 
contract in the name of William A. Rust, to authorize 
the cutting of an unlimited quantity of timber, on the 
Lac Court d' Oreilles Reservation, by stipulating for 
the payment of $10,000 a year for five years. For the 
payment of $50,000, the Contractor had liberty to take 
timber, during ten years, of the value of a million dol- 
lars, or more, if, as is believed, Pine Trees to that ex- 
tent could be found on the Reservation. Clark says 
that he shrank from this act; but he was assured that it 
would be all right in the Interior Department, and that 
if he insisted upon it John L. Delano, your son, and pri- 
vate Secretary, would meet him in Chicago, and assure 
him that all was right. This, however, was not neces- 
sary, for eight days after the signing of the contract 



I 2 



your name was affixed to it in Washington. It is 
true that the approval of the Indians was necessary 
to the completion of the contract ; and some of them 
did approve, but not in the presence of any United 
States officer, and as has since been credibly asserted, 
their signatures were obtained by fraudulent means. 
When you were remonstrated with, you stopped action 
under the contract. A supplemental contract was, how- 
ever, made on February 6th, 1873, giving William A. 
Rust and his associates possession of this reserva- 
tion for ten years longer, on the payment of $5,000 a 
year for 1 5 years ; the approval by some of the 
Indians of this supplemented contract was also obtain- 
ed by fraud, as is alleged and believed. The copy 
of the contract that was given to the Indians, they sent 
to me ; it was interlined with an agreement that the 
whole of the purchase money should be paid directly 
to the Indians, and you are aware of the difficulties 
occasioned by this. I have the original correspon- 
dence on the subject, and would gladly have produced 
it before any Commission having the power to compel 
the attendance of witnesses. 

In the testimony of E. P. Smith, he twice refers to 
an alleged conversation with the Hon. H. M. Rice, in 
which he makes Mr. Rice say "that $ 50,000 was as 
good as $100,000 to the Indians, as they would squan- 
der it, in any event." Mr. Rice denies this charge 
positively, in the following words: "I opposed the sale 
in the strongest language I could use, upon the ground 
that it was a fraud, a cheat, a swindle of the largest 
magnitude. I did say that it made no difference wheth- 
er the price was $50,000 or $100,000, as the price 
made it no less a fraud and swindle. I was at the time 
ignorant of the fact, that Smith was trying to get Clark 
to sell the timber to Wilder. This he concealed from 
me, and when he said that Clark ought not to have 
sold it for less than $100,000, 1 did not know that these 
were his and Wilder's figures." 

Mr. Rice, from first to last, has written to me 



that this sale and the efforts of Smith to supplant 
the purchaser, were grossly fraudulent. These Indians 
looked to him and to Bishop Whipple as their best 
friends, and after ten years of intimacy with Mr. 
Rice, I say with confidence that no Indian ever 
had a better, a more disinterested, or a more self- 
sacrificing- friend than the Hon. Henry M. Rice. When, 
recently, there was imminent danger of a collision be- 
tween the State authorities and the Indians, Governor 
Davis, (of Minnesota,) sent Mr. Rice as a Commis- 
sioner to the offending bands of Chippewas. I have 
in my possession letters written by the Chiefs of these 
bands, offering to give up the offender to Mr. Rice, 
and to abide by his decision. Your Commissioners, in 
screening guilty officials, may throw doubts upon the 
character of such a man, but Indian wars will cease 
when such men as Mr. Rice have authority to treat 
with them ; for the Red Man instinctively reverences 
bravery, truth, and honor. 

Your Commissioners, turning aside from the subject 
under investigation, are pleased to give me the follow- 
ing good advice : " This man is ever profuse in profes- 
sions of confidence in the President of the United 
States. Then, why, if his object be in good faith, to 
bring about a reformation in the service, and to secure 
the dismissal of dishonest officials, does he not go to 
the President, and lay before him the documents which 
are claimed to be sufficient to secure the conviction of 
these officials ? or why does he not go to the Secretary 
at the head of the proper Department, to whom he has 
been equally profuse in professions, and request that 
he shall examine the documents upon, which he bases 
these accusations ? He certainly must know, if his 
testimony is of the conclusive character claimed, the 
dismissal of the officials accused would be instantly or- 
dered." This is sound reasoning, and perhaps the only 
thoroughly sound reasoning in the report. It seems 
to call for a reply, and it will afford me pleasure to 
show how fully I have heretofore acted in accord with the 



views thus expressed. In the autumn of 1870, on my 
second semi-official visit of that year to Indian Agencies 
on the Missouri River, then under my supervision, I dis- 
covered that General Parker, Commissioner of Indian 
Affairs, was lend ng himself to stupendous frauds. Im- 
mediately on my return I went to Washington, and, as 
you know, had a private, earnest talk with President 
Grant. He seemed unwilling to investigate, or to have 
any investigation of Commissioner Parker's doings. 
Owing to implicit confidence in his friends, he is too often 
blind to their wrong doings. I then laid the whole matter 
before you, and, perhaps out of respect to the Chief 
Magistrate, you evinced no willingness to make the 
investigation. I finished my semi-official report in your 
office, and read it to you. As the frauds affected the 
Indians then under my care, I could not rest without 
trying to remedy the wrong. I asked you to loan me 
the report for publication in the Daily Chronicle. You 
gave it to me for that purpose, saying, however, that 
you would have no responsibility in its publication. It 
resulted in a Congressional investigation, by which 
huge frauds in contracts for freight and cattle and flour 
were revealed, and remedies attempted by legislation. 
Out of regard to the President, the Report ol the in- 
vestigating committee was very mild, although it set 
forth all the important facts. The following paragraph 
is part of the conclusion reached : " To the mind of the 
committee the testimony shows irregularities, neglect 
and incompetency, and, in some instances, a departure 
from the express provisions of law for the regulation 
of Indian expenditures, and in the management of af- 
fairs in the Indian Department." Yet, this neglectful 
incompetent, and lawless Commissioner of Indian Af- 
fairs, was allowed to remain in office many months, and 
until it pleased him to resign. 

Your investigating commissioners will thus see that 
my action at that time corresponded^ with their views. 
When stupendous frauds occurred in the appropr a- 
tions to the Teton Sioux, and at Grand River Agency, 



*5 



on the Upper Missouri, I conferred privately with you 
and with the Assistant Secretary, General Cowen, about 
it, but I never heard of any effort made to investigate 
these frauds, or to punish the offenders. Recently, 
when frauds in beef and flour were perpetrated at the 
Red Cloud and Spotted Tail Agencies, over which I and 
my colleagues have official oversight, and when the 
Chippewas, who claim me as their friend, and with 
whose missionaries I have an official connection, com- 
plained of being wronged by fraudulent sales of their 
pine timber, I could not rest on an unavailing remon- 
strance. You know that I sought a private interview 
with the President, and that for months I had been 
pleading with you in vain to obtain a remedy. In spite 
of all this, I still have hope that you will remedy the 
wrong done to the Chippewas, now that the testimony 
taken by the committee of the Minnesota Legislature 
has brought to light the truth that your commission 
failed to reveal. 

Yours respectfullv. 

WM. WELSH. 



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